no objection to its being
made express and irrevocable.

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the
executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer
the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it,
unimpaired by him, to his successors.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of
the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present
differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the
Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your
side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice
will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American
people.

By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have
wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and
have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their
own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue
and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly,
can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject.
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object
to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take
deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good
object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still
have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the
laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have
no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted
that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there
still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet
forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way
all our present difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can
have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath
registe